Our Heart
by Tea-and-Onigiri
Summary: Nepeta Lejion is an alien who has lost the ability to speak and is lightyears from home. Dirk Strider is a kid who lives alone. When these heroes of heart meet, what will be the result? One-shot, DirkNep, approx. 3,000 words


Our Heart

DirkxNepeta One-shot

Dirk Strider had never considered himself to be particularly lonely.

Granted, the thirteen-year-old lived in what would be considered an apocalypse, but Roxy was living out there too. He even had the capability to talk to Jane and Jake, who lived hundreds of years in the past. Hell, even the trolls could be good company.

So, why did he feel like Nepeta had released him from the chains of what could only be called loneliness?

Nepeta Lejion came into Dirk's life in the time that was once known as August, in his thirteenth year. Because he lived in the middle of the ocean, it was a little difficult to notice the changing seasons, but Dirk's internal calendar was spot-on. Boredom had driven him to begin soaking up knowledge at a young age, but Dirk wasn't studying every second of his life. Right now, for instance, he was just killing time by milling around the apartment in a tank top and shorts, observing seagulls that flew around outside.

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang, and Dirk jumped in alarm. This was a friggin' apocalypse; no one should be ringing his doorbell! He grabbed a sword and cautiously advanced towards the front door, forming four possible explanations for this situation. A) Roxy had built a boat and come to see him despite her drunkenness, B) the ancient doorbell was glitching, c) some Batterwitch lackey was coming for him, or D), one of these seagulls was just a bit crazier than the rest.

Dirk opened the door swiftly so that in the case the something that rang the doorbell wanted to kill him, he could catch them off guard. However, the sound of the door banging against the wall was the only noise made, seeing as there were no visible living creatures on Dirk's porch. That didn't mean the porch was unoccupied, though. In the center of the five foot by five foot square of concrete sat a large cardboard box.

_This had better just be debris…_ Dirk thought as he began to cautiously nudge the box with his sword. Finally, he moved onto the porch to where he could peer into the box, to see if there was something inside.

Surprisingly enough, there was something… rather, someone, inside the box.

Curled up in the bottom of the cardboard box was what looked like a sleeping girl. She had short black hair and the figure of ten-year-old female, but the similarities stopped there. Her skin was grey rather than a shade of tan, and green undertones were visible in her face; her blood was definitely not red. From the top of her head, two orange horns that resembled cat's ears poked out. Her clothing would not be considered fashionable compared to what humans most recently considered "in style"; the girl had on plain black pants, a black shirt with a green Leo symbol on it, a baggy green jacket, and a fake blue cat tail.

The most unsettling feature, in Dirk's mind, was her teeth. The girl in the box had rather sharp fangs, visible because she slept with her mouth open. To Dirk, this meant she could be lethal. She most likely was a gift from the Condence, an attempt to kill off the only remaining human male on Earth.

_Nice try, Baroness,_ Dirk thought slyly. _But you'll never kill me, not even in your dreams._

Despite his hatred of the Baroness, however, Dirk couldn't bring himself to kill the girl. It would've been easy; the way she was sleeping, he could get a clean shot through the heart with his sword. But she was tiny in comparison to Dirk's taller frame and hadn't made a threat yet. He had to give her a chance to prove she wasn't really a Batterwitch minion, no matter how much he doubted it…

Dirk scooped up the box gently and took it inside. He estimated that the girl only weighed around eighty-ninety pounds; she must not have eaten in a while. That would hinder her, should she try and attack, but Dirk still placed the box in the middle of the living room. That way, there could be room for a throwdown.

After setting her down, Dirk sat on the sofa and leaned back with his sword laying next to him. His mind instantly began to wander, and he kept coming back to the same dilemma concerning the girl in the box. Dirk couldn't decide what he would rather have; a good fight, or a companion. He had been incredibly bored lately. There wasn't much to do in the ocean, and nothing would please him greater than taking out a minion of the Baroness. He already had friends, even though they weren't with him…

Even though he could never meet them face-to-face.

The girl in the box finally woke up after thirty minutes inside Dirk's home. She actually did act like a cat; not by attacking Dirk, but because she poked her head out of the box cutely and examined her new environment. Meanwhile, Dirk was on edge, gripping the handle of his sword in case he was threatened.

He never was. The cat girl only curiously crawled out of the box and stood up; the height difference between herself and Dirk was even more than he estimated; and began to stare at him. She wore an expression of confusion and awe that was easily read in her deep orange eyes. Dirk could tell now that she meant no harm, but that only puzzled him. If she wasn't an alien part of the Baroness's schemes, what was she? What was her purpose?

"Who are you?" Dirk finally asked firmly.

The girl seemed a little startled at the broken silence. "N-n…nnn!" she attempted to answer. Dirk could tell there was something wrong with her voice, seeing as she couldn't even say the first syllable of her name.

After a few more "nnn's", she gave up. At first it looked like defeat would make her hide in the box again, but she noticed something pink beside the sofa and stayed out. Dirk flinched a bit when she came closer to pick it up, but relaxed when he saw a pink marker in her hand. He expected her to pick up the sofa or something…

The girl held the marker up in the air and pointed at it. She then waggled it in the air as if she was writing.

"You can write who you are for me?" Dirk asked. The girl smiled and nodded as an answer.

It was an adorable smile, even with the fangs.

Dirk tried to ignore that, and pulled a piece of scrap paper out of his pocket. His space was actually very organized for a thirteen-year-old, but little things like the marker and the paper had a tendency to pop up from time to time.

He placed the paper on the coffee table in front of him and let the girl go to work. After less than a minute, her large handwriting had filled the page with information, and she handed the piece of paper back to Dirk. He carefully accepted it and began to read.

":33 I am Nepeta Lejion. I am six. I am lost. This is not my home planet, so please help me!"

Dirk looked her straight in the eye. "Are you here to cause destruction?" he asked. "Are you here to kill me? Is that what you need my help for?"

Nepeta shook her head "no" frantically, so Dirk could only continue to assume she was okay. The six-years-old thing was odd, though… she looked to be closer to ten or eleven…

The following weeks were much more eventful than those past, which was a breath of fresh air for Dirk. As Nepeta's lack of evil motives became more and more clear, the two began to grow closer. Dirk began feeding Nepeta, and soon enough, the two had made a ritual out of eating three meals a day together. As it turned out, aliens needed as much sleep as humans, so while Dirk slept in his bed at night, Nepeta would be on the couch in the living room. However, it seemed that Nepeta had nightmares most of the time, and would sneak into Dirk's room to curl up with him. Dirk didn't mind. Regardless of where she slept, Nepeta would always wake up before him, and pounced him as soon as he awoke.

During the day, the two stayed inside. Dirk was wary about taking her to the open ocean, and besides, she was so content with all the anime watching they did. Nepeta and Dirk spent hours laying in front of the computer screen viewing the old Japanese animations. While they did so, Nep was constantly drawing her ships in the spiral notebook that Dirk had given her. It didn't take long before his desk area was drowning in doodles of Nezumi and Shion, Latvia and Sealand, Soul and Maka… if you could name it, Nepeta had drawn it at least twice.

One day, however, the daily anime-watching was interrupted by a pop-up ad. This happened every so often, and Dirk was used to it. But when he moved the mouse close the pop-up window, Nepeta noticed what had appeared on the screen, and finally formed an entire word.

"Feferi! Feferi!" she exclaimed, pointing to the screen. Dirk immediately stopped what he was doing and attempted to figure out what had ticked of Nep.

He realized that she was pointing at the ad, which got him to notice that this one was a little different than the rest. The pop-up actually contained the Batterwitch herself; another part of the old, "I am the supreme leader and if you disobey me then I will eat you with a side of Hamburger Helper" campaign.

"Woah, Nep, chill out," Dirk told Nepeta. "It's just the Baroness, the bad guy." He closed the pop-up window. He had erased all doubts of Nepeta's motives, but now she seemed to recognize the Batterwitch… Dirk found himself feeling nervous. Had he actually let down his guard enough to let the enemy in?

However, Nepeta's current sobbing wasn't very threatening. Her sunset-colored eyes were filled with tears, and she was using the end of the sleeve as a tissue. "Fef…" she whimpered. It was clear that if she was trying to hide how she truly felt, she wasn't doing a very good job at it.

Dirk knew, before even attempting, that he wouldn't be able to console Nepeta very well. He still had to get her to stop being sad, though… he wasn't that heartless. So, just how should he go about this…?

"Let's go swimming," he proposed without thinking. The waters around the apartment were actually pretty calm when it wasn't storming. Sometimes, when Dirk got bored, he might go out and fish or something, which was good for calming down. Maybe it would have the same effect on Nep.

"You can just go in those clothes, minus the jacket," he added. It had been difficult, but Dirk finally got Nepeta to look up at him. "It'll be fun."

Nepeta gave a bittersweet smile. "Okay," she answered. She was finally able to form complete words, so she was overcoming whatever odd state she was in when she arrived on Dirk's doorstep, which made him much more relieved.

A half hour later, the duo was floating in the water close to the apartment. Neither wore shoes, and Dirk was shirtless. Nepeta's jacket and tail were left in the apartment as well, so her cap-sleeved blouse was visible.

It seemed she couldn't swim, so Nepeta was holding onto Dirk. He was in front of her, kicking underwater to keep them afloat.

"It's nice out today, isn't it?" Dirk asked. As a response "yes", Nepeta shook her head cutely and smiled.

Dirk didn't want to bore Nepeta with his lame attempts at a conversation, so he quickly thought of something else to do. "Okay, when I dive under, take in a lot of air and hold your breath," he told Nep before pulling her onto his back. "And hold on tight," he added.

After taking a breath of air himself, Dirk dove beneath the water's surface. He traveled mostly on the power of his legs, as his hands were occupied with holding Nepeta. He swore that he would never let go of her.

The underwater scenery was breath-taking. Fish swam both above and below the troll-human pair, going about their business like any other day. Light filtered in from above and touched the ruins that lay below; the remnants of a civilization. Although she was having difficulty seeing it, as she kept opening and closing her eyes, Nepeta seemed to be awestruck. This made Dirk feel better. Maybe he wasn't as bad with people as he thought?

All of a sudden, Dirk and Nepeta heard a loud, angry noise to the right of them. Dirk turned just in time to see a sea beast rampaging through the ocean. This one looked like a larger version of another creature called "seahorse" that lived hundreds of years ago. Whatever it really was, it seemed hungry for meat that was larger than fish; preferably humanoid.

Dirk would have sworn if he wasn't underwater. Using the nicely-built muscles in his legs, Dirk began to swim away as fast as possible. With Nepeta's added weight and Dirk's inability to use his hands to aid his swimming; he was holding her tighter than ever now; they weren't moving as fast as possible, and the monster was gaining. Fight or flight had taken over perhaps too much in Dirk, as he hadn't thought to shoot to the surface right away. Well, he had a good set of lungs anyway; it wasn't an immediate worry.

However, Nepeta didn't. Dirk feared for her safety and began towards the surface; thank God for buoyancy, because it helped him get an edge on the monster seahorse. Soon enough, both of their heads were bobbing above the water's surface.

The threat of the giant seahorse still there, though. Getting a speed boost didn't make Dirk and Nepeta safe, so he had to keep kicking as hard as possible until he got back to Bro's old apartment. But even Dirk's strength had a limit, and he was seriously pushing it now. _Just a little further, _he reminded himself.

Mostly on luck, Dirk made it. He began climbing back onto the porch while holding Nepeta close. She had fallen unconscious from being underwater too long, so Dirk had to get her in ASAP.

He hadn't considered the monster having the ability to come up from the water for any length of time. The menacing seahorse was still in pursuit of them, and poked its head above the surface, ready to strike. Dirk noticed only in time to scoop up Nepeta and rush into the apartment. The beast leapt up and nipped his calf, leaving a gash large enough that red blood gushed out. The sight of this scared the beast for some reason, and he retreated.

Nepeta came first. As soon as they were safe inside the apartment, Dirk ran into the bedroom and laid her on his bed. He then crawled to where he was hovering above her, ignoring the blood staining his bed sheets. To bring her back, he administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, plugging her nose, opening her mouth with his lips, blowing air into her lungs, and coming up. Dirk repeated this a few times until Nepeta opened her eyes weakly and came to. She was coughing furiously, and Dirk used this as a chance to let her catch her breath. He then stumbled over to the bathroom to get a bandage on his cut.

When he returned to the bedroom, Nepeta was breathing heavily. Dirk could hear that from the doorway, and limped over to the bed, crawled in, and wrapped and arm around Nepeta. She seemed a bit startled, and a light green blush surfaced on her cheeks, which Dirk though was cute.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Dirk focused in on Nepeta's orange eyes with his auburn ones. "I didn't mean for things to go wrong. I just wanted to get you to feel better… but all I did was put you in danger."

Nepeta gave him an understanding look and a bittersweet smile. She touched his hair with her hand, as if to say, _don't worry. I know you meant no harm._

Now Dirk was blushing too. He knew that if there was any time to do this, it was now.

Dirk leaned toward Nepeta and pressed his lips against hers, this time not for CPR, but for affection. "I love you," he confessed after pulling back. He had never felt that way about anyone, but was sure that the odd feelings that arose in his heart whenever Nepeta smiled… that was what love was like. He cursed himself a million times over for ever thinking that she wanted Dirk dead; Nepeta was the purest, most beautiful person he knew of. She could be quirky and energetic, but was also incredibly kind and pleasant. Nepeta was everything Dirk had ever hoped to be, and then some.

She understood what Dirk had said, but Nepeta wore a shocked expression. She looked like what had happened was so unbelievable, it shouldn't have occurred. Before Dirk could catch her, Nepeta had rolled off the bed and ran out of the room.

Dirk almost leapt up to chase after Nepeta. Despite his limp, he made it to the room's entrance. However, Nepeta was nowhere to be seen in the apartment.

For the next hour or so, Dirk searched the apartment up and down. He ignored his bad leg, as all his attention was towards finding Nepeta. Still, he never found her, and pain returned to his calf with full force.

Dirk collapsed on the living room floor, first in a sitting position, then lying on his back. He didn't feel like he was an entire person anymore. He felt rotten, because maybe if he hadn't told Nepeta how he felt, she wouldn't have disappeared. Maybe if he had been better, he'd still have a companion.

A rush of emotions rocked Dirk, and silent tears flowed over the rims of his eyes for the first time in his life.

His fate had been sealed. Dirk was forever alone.


End file.
